16. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

A SHIFT IN THE AMERICAN SENSE OF ORDER

Meanwhile, all this economic stress was also shaking the very spiritual foundations of the country.  What had happened to America?  It seemed almost as if America’s God had failed the country.  In fact, who exactly was at fault?  And what exactly at this point could be done to get the country up and moving again?

The very popular early 20th century American philosopher John Dewey, who more than anyone else shaped modern American Liberal views on education and social reform, was a self-avowed Humanist who believed completely in the power of human logic and in man’s basic goodness.  There was no place in his worldview for God – though he did not attack the idea directly.  He simply moved on past the idea of God to build his ideas of secular Liberal reform entirely around the notion of man’s instinctive logic and good intentions.  In this he was very typical of a growing segment of intellectual America.

To Dewey's way of thinking, Christianity needed to be pushed out of its central position as the foundational worldview of Western society and culture in order that the way could be made for the birth of a new religion, a secular religion originally identified as Humanism (referred to more often today as Secular Humanism, or just simply Secularism).

In 1933, thirty-four individuals well-placed in the world of academics, the publishing industry, and Unitarian ministry, published a Humanist Manifesto – calling for a new religion and an accompanying social order focusing on the powers of man.  Among those signers was, unsurprisingly, John Dewey.

The goal of the Humanist Manifesto was to take up the responsibility of restoring a bright light of human optimism in the midst of a very gloomy Great Depression America.  The Manifesto declared that the time had passed for "mere revision of traditional attitudes."  It was time to come to terms with "new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience." Thus:

The Manifesto's fifteen affirmations made clear the specifics of this necessary new religion ("Religious Humanism").  Its beliefs were: no creation but simply self-existent creation; man as an evolved natural creature; truth only through scientific study; the end to theistic (God based) religion; social concern and service to replace the self-serving profit motive of capitalism; the need to embrace life rather than flee from it (seeing traditional religion, as the famous psychiatrist Freud claimed it to be, as escapist in nature).  Of particular interest are several of the Manifesto’s affirmations.

In the Ninth Affirmation it claims that humanists will replace "old attitudes involved in worship and prayer" with "a heightened sense of personal life" and "a cooperative effort to promote social well-being."

In the Tenth Affirmation the Humanists proclaim that in their Humanism "there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural."

In the Eleventh Affirmation they claim that in approaching life’s crises, employing "reasonable and manly attitudes" – acquired through education (their version of education, of course) – that their Religious Humanism "will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking."

In the Thirteenth Affirmation, they make it very clear that the intent of Religious Humanism is to remake the religious life of the nation around their modern religious ideals and to see that particular traditional church practices and activities "be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world."

It is very important to note that the Humanists of the 1930s were well aware that in their fervor for Humanism they were pushing for the establishment of a new religion in America. They intended at that time to do so simply by appealing to the common sense of a greatly distressed American people (thanks to the Depression) to see that the old days were gone.  It was time to go modern.

But things did not ultimately go that way.  World War Two came, the Depression consequently disappeared, America came out of that war victorious and ever stronger in its Christian faith.  This was not the way the Humanists wanted to see things go and did not give up their battle.  But instead of appealing to the American people, they eventually went to the federal courts, complaining that Christianity’s central place in American culture was in violation of the Constitution’s "separation of church and state" – their own (and Jefferson’s) interpretation of the words of the First Amendment.¹  And therefore something "not religious" – like supposedly their "secular" Humanism – should properly be the only foundational cultural principle supported and defended by the federal courts.

In this quest, the Humanists got the Supreme Court finally to bow to the Humanist viewpoint in the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman.  In that case the idea that secular Humanism was itself a fundamental worldview or religion was not mentioned (of course not).  The embarrassing 1933 Humanist Manifesto (which would have made a complete lie of the Humanists' position in the case) was conveniently overlooked.  And the Humanists were quick in 1973 to come out with Humanist Manifesto II, which drops the affirmation that what the Humanists are doing is pure religion, and instead recasts Humanism as simply "scientific Truth." But all religions are about what a community sees as fundamental Truth, the kind of Truth that everything else about their society’s norms and laws flow from faithfully.

But anyway, there it is, the 1933 Humanist Manifesto, admitting that it is seeking avidly to bring America to a new religion.

¹"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."